ah kansas, you are so beautiful

just in case you were wondering, no my bike did not sell on ebay last week. and if you are feeling saucy (or sorry for me) then it is still for sale, and i honestly feel like the price i had it at is practically giving the beauty away. anyway, if you know anyone that needs a sexy off road machine, please send them to kansascampfire.blogspot.com thank you.

there is much to tell of the past week in the life that surrounds me and the bike culture that is emporia, ks, so lets get this thing started already.

eric benjamin (been jammin) and i finally decided (i say finally but honestly it only took us about 5 seconds to make up our minds) that "kansas bicyclist" magazine needed to become a reality. and in the way that most things in my life manifest themselves it happened rather quickly and things needed to be done in some of the worst weather possible. if you go here you shall see where the inspiration for "kansas bicyclist" was incarnated on ol' adventure monkey's site. and if you go here you shall see more photos like this one that were taken on the day that this grand realization began to take form.

yeah thats me standing on top of one of the steepest hills known to man-kind in the tri-county area, smack dab on the edge of the flint hills. as you can tell i was so excited to get out there and freeze that i forgot to where tights, shoe covers or a balaclava. all resulting in my feet, ears and lower extremities being colder than i can remember in the last...oh lets say...20 years of my life. eric wanted the shot for the magazine to be on a cold, overcast and snowy day in kansas to catch the contrast of the latest cover shot on "bicycling" magazine and i do believe that we couldn't have picked a nastier or more perfect day than last friday if we had wanted to. we're going to see what comes of this beautifully crafted photo shoot as soon as the adventure monkey deems the final product worthy of human (or bloggers) eyes.

we couldn't get back to the bike shop fast enough for me to rip my muddy shoes and socks off to shove my feet in the nearest air vent to try and break loose the icicles that had forged my toes together. of course everyone laughed at us, but we didn't care because we had obviously just conquered the world in our minds and if eric asked me...you know i'd do it again man. that's just how we roll around here. lelan knows what i'm talkin 'bout.

oh and by the way...my beautiful wife and i aren't going to have the house to ourselves anymore around aug. 24th. and we couldn't be happier about it.
-bobby